Saturday, June 3, 2017

Dixie Rose

The North Carolina Quilt Project discovered several unusual patterns, including this applique design, which local tradition called the Dixie Rose.

Quilt by an unknown maker, mid 19th-century.

Quilt date-inscribed 1855

made for Laura Brown McCallum, Robeson County, North Carolina

The only two versions of the design discovered so far are in these two North Carolina quilts, one

a sampler signature quilt, one a repeat block and both look to be sashed with cording.

A 1910 novel name "A Dixie Rose"

We don't know what Laura McCallum and her friends called the design. The term Dixie Rose is quite a Southern tradition, but seems to be found more towards the end of the 19th century and into the 20th as a given name for Southern babies, etc.

Grave of a woman born in 1924

When Terry Thompson and I started making Civil War commemorative quilts twenty years ago we were quite taken with the pattern and featured a couple of reproductions in our books.

Judy Davis made this one from a pattern I drew,

echoing the use of fuss-cut paisley cones for the leaves and border

in the quilt at the top of this page.

A simpler version by Ilyse Moore

from another of my patterns.

Terry did a block for her Southern Memorial Quilt.

And designed a variation for her

book Four Block Quilts

Most of these patterns are out of print and hard to find but the pictures may provide inspiration.

Print this out at 200% for a rough 16" pattern.

Here are links to the files at the North Carolina project on the Quilt Index.